This is a transcript of Joe Vecchio's daily "Cup O' Joe Report" podcast, availaible via "screaming audio" hereand posted with the permission of the author.

So this right-wing troll on a message board was trying to downplay Bush's illegal wiretapping by saying he found it funny that we're criticizing Bush for adhering to an idea that's one of the core beliefs of democrats and liberal minded governments around the world. The idea that the rights of society outweigh the rights of the individual.

This is, of course, crapola. Yes, liberals believe in the idea of a greater community, of being part of something larger than yourself, and of everyone's shared responsibility as citizens. And there are occasions when the greater needs of society are more important than individual needs. But this isn't one of those cases. No liberal I ever met has ever believed in allowing the government to do and get away with acts that are clearly illegal. What Mr. Bush and his administration are doing are, to my mind at least, clearly against both individual liberty and the liberty of society overall. It's an issue that ought to be bipartisan, but in this day and age any issue can be turned into a partisan one.

Now I'm not a psychiatrist, so I'm not sure what reason this troll had for instigating trouble, I'm not even going to pretend to understand why they continue to support an administration that is among the most, if not the most corrupt and incompetent administrations we've ever had. Maybe they don't see that what these people are doing is a threat to their liberties as well as mine. But it seemed pretty clear to me that, for this guy anyway, having a Republican President was more important than having an American one.

The Cup O' Joe Report podcast is available free of charge to any radio show who wishes to use it. The views expressed by Joe Vecchio are entirely his own and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of any organization he belongs to.